Description

The Middle East in the World offers students a fresh, comprehensive, multidisciplinary entry point to the broader Middle East. After a brief introduction to the study of the region, the early chapters of the book survey the essentials of Middle Eastern history; important historical narratives; and the region's languages, religions, and global connections. Students are guided through the material with relevant maps, resource boxes, and text boxes that support and guide further independent exploration of the topics at hand. The second half of the book presents interdisciplinary case studies, each of which focuses on a specific country or sub-region and a salient issue, offering a taste of the cultural distinctiveness of the particular country while also drawing attention to global linkages. Readers will come away from this book with an understanding of the larger historical, political, and cultural frameworks that shaped the Middle East as we know it today, and of current issues that have relevance in the Middle East and beyond.show more

About Lucia Volk

Lucia Volk (PhD in Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University) is Professor in the Department of International Relations and co-director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at San Francisco State University. She is the author of Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon and numerous articles in leading journals.show more

Table of contents

Part One: Overview; 1. Introduction to the Region (Lucia Volk) 2. History and Politics of Middle East Studies (Lucia Volk) Part Two: Fundamentals 3. Introduction to Middle East History (Lucia Volk) 4. Language in the Middle East (Lucia Volk) 5. Religion in the Middle East (Lucia Volk) Part Three: The Global Context 6. Globalization in the Middle East (Lucia Volk) 7. Key issues of Globalization in the Middle East (Lucia Volk) Part Four: Case Studies 8. Introduction to the Case Studies (Lucia Volk) 9. Diversity in the Medieval Middle East: Inclusions, Exclusions, Supporters, and Discontents (Rachel Goshgarian) 10. Democracy, Secularism, and Islam: Examining the 'Turkish Model' (Hootan Shambayati) 11. A 'Peace by Piece' Look at the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Maia Carter Hallward) 12. The Green Movement and the Struggle for Human Rights in Iran (Mahmood Monshipouri) 13. State-Society Relations and Protest in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Nicole Watts) 14. Energy and Geopolitics in the Gulf: Mixing Water and Oil (Asli Ilgit) 15. Central Asian Cotton in a Global Perspective: Uzbekistan's Monoculture and its Impact on Rural Society (Russell Zanca) 16. Images of Place: The Legacy of the Ottoman House in Modern Turkey (Carel Bertram) 17. Counterinsurgency and Culture: The 2003 U.S. Invasion of Iraq (Rochelle Davis) 18. Lebanese War Diaries in the Digital Age: Blogging about the Home Front during Times of Violence (Nadine Sinno) 19. Language and Identity in Tunisia: 'Without Tunisian Arabic, We Are Not Tunisian' (Keith Walters)show more